ELFMAN, DANNY

ELFMAN, DANNY (1953– ), U.S. composer-musician. Born in Amarillo, Texas, to teacher Milton and teacher/writer Blossom (née Bernstein) Elfman and raised in Los Angeles, Elfman played violin in public high school and later played the conga drums and violin with the avant-garde troupe Grand Magic Circus in France and Belgium. After spending a year touring West Africa at 18, Elfman returned to Los Angeles in 1971 following a bout with malaria. His brother, Richard, asked him to join his multimedia theater ensemble, the Mystic Nights of the Oingo Boingo, and help score his film The Forbidden Zone (1980), which starred Elfman as Satan. Elfman taught himself composition during this time by transcribing the music of jazz great Duke Ellington. While working on the film, Elfman and other members formed the new wave group Oingo Boingo in 1979. The group released a string of albums with IRS Records – Oingo Boingo (1980), Only a Lad (1981), Nothing to Fear (1982), and Good for Your Soul (1984). Elfman recorded his first solo album So-Lo in 1984 for MCA. The group scored a Top 40 hit with the theme to the movie Weird Science (1985). That same year, the feature film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure debuted with   Elfman's score, and marked the first collaboration between the composer and director Tim Burton. Oingo Boingo followed Elfman to MCA, releasing Dead Man's Party (1986), Boi-ngo (1987), Boingo Alive (1988), and Dark at the End of the Tunnel (1990), but failed to break out from its local fan base. Elfman and Burton's gothic-themed creations continued with Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), and Edward Scissorhands (1990). He won a Grammy award for best instrumental composition in 1989 for "The Batman Theme" for the film Batman, and was nominated for best score. In 1990, he received two Emmy nominations for his theme for the animated TV series The Simpsons, and in 1991 he received another Grammy nod for his Gershwin-flavored score for the 1990 film Dick Tracy. He released an album of his film scores, Music for a Darkened Theater, Vol. 1: Film and Television Music (1990), which was followed by Music for a Darkened Theater, Vol. 2: Film and Television Music (1996). Elfman co-wrote, scored, and sang as Jack Skellington in Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Oingo Boingo shortened its name to Boingo and released a self-titled album in 1994, but called it quits a year later. Elfman, already established as a composer, went on to score such films as Men in Black (1997), Good Will Hunting (1997), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Spy Kids (2001), Spider-Man (2002), and Chicago (2002), and the TV show Desperate Housewives (2004). Elfman's second marriage was to actress Bridget Fonda. (Adam Wills (2nd ed.)